Family Law Titles

IMMIGRATION: R (AM) (Kenya) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

(Court of Appeal; Ward, Wilson and Hallett LJJ; 13 October 2009)

The judge rejected an application for judicial review of a decision to refuse indefinite leave to remain to an adult living with someone (the applicant's aunt) who already had indefinite leave to remain. The applicant's appeal was rejected, by a majority. The judge below had been correct to conclude that the applicant and her aunt did not come within the letter or the spirit of the applicable family indefinite leave to remain policy; this was not the kind of family unit at which the policy was directed. Ward LJ dissented on the basis that the Secretary of State for the Home Department seemed not to have considered properly the possibility of exercising his discretion on compassionate grounds.